Surrendering the Sunglasses

By Belinda

I buy certain things in sets of two. There are things that I buy in irrational quantities, but that's another blog story; this is about items for which I have a reason for duplicates: gloves and sunglasses--things I tend to lose and for which I keep a back up pair. 

I've been doing so well with gloves ever since I bought two sets that clip together as pairs. I have caught them just in time, dropping to the ground from my lap as I stepped from the car several times, and I recently found one of my pairs lying neatly outside the post office exactly where I had parked the car the previous day--but I still have both pairs. 

Recently though, I lost the one pair of sunglasses I had left, and which I been so careful to not lose all winter. My eyes are light sensitive and I need sunglasses when driving so after checking the lost and found box at church and finding only a pink and grey paisley silk scarf that I didn't even know I'd lost, I resigned myself to buying another pair, and a spare.

So last weekend I bought two pairs I loved from a local drug store. One had a zebra print frame and the other a leopard print. They were funky and cool and I was all set. I kept one pair in the car and the other pair at home. 

On Friday afternoon I had a pre-op appointment with an eye surgeon, after which I drove back to my office. It was when I got into the car to drive home that I realized I couldn't find my sunglasses. I went back to the office and looked around in case they were on my desk, but they weren't. I checked under the car seat. No luck. I thought back to the doctor's office and could not remember wearing them on the way back to work. Somewhere in the doctor's office, or perhaps in the downstairs wash room where I had stopped to re-insert my contact lenses, my sunglasses and I had parted company. 

I can't tell you how disappointing this was to me. I even tried calling the doctor's office but got the answering machine saying that they answer the phone only on Monday to Thursday during the day, and on Friday during the morning. What is that--answering the phone "only on Friday morning?" I knew they were in the office NOT answering the phone. I had been there. 

I obsessed over my lost zebra print sunglasses. I confess I spent much too much time perseverating over where I could have left them. 

Finally, this morning, I decided to let go--to surrender the sunglasses. Instead of fretting, I decided to hope that someone else would find them and enjoy them; my loss would be their gain. This helped a lot. My perspective changed and I could go on and buy another pair.

I hope I'm not alone in my absent mindedness. Do you find yourself continually losing certain items? I wonder if this little idea would help you--thinking that someone else might be enjoying your lost things, and wishing them joy.